Yahoo! Finance features JFI higher ed access research

Yahoo! Finance featured JFI’s first of three publications on the “Geography of Higher Ed,” which was released in December 2019. Reporter Aarthi Swaminathan spoke with Laura Beamer, JFI’s Lead Researcher on Higher Education Finance, who co-led the research with Senior Fellow Marshall Steinbaum.

The research report and map show dramatic inequalities in the availability of higher ed institutions throughout the U.S., and in particular, for poorer zip codes. The initial findings also point to 10.1 million individuals living in post-secondary education deserts, and 30.7 million people living in proximity to only one public institution. In poorer areas, students have dramatically fewer, if any options, which the research team hypothesizes may have an impact on their debt burdens–the subject of the next reports to come out in spring of 2021. Moreover, the research shows a higher density of private post-secondary institutions in areas that are otherwise deserts, with implications for the debate on tuition-free community college.

Beamer said, “Though financial access is extremely important, geographic access is also a very important piece of this dialogue and should be talked about more.”

Read the full article here.

Thank you to Aarthi and Yahoo! Finance for speaking with us and featuring our work.